The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept away competitors in all five assembly segments of Ghaziabad, however, it failed to get votes in Muslim dominated areas, as per the polling data.

The polling booth data reveals that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made heavy inroads into the vote bank of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress to gain a majority in the state. (Sakib Ali/HT File)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept away competitors in all five assembly segments of Ghaziabad, however, it failed to get votes in Muslim dominated areas, as per the polling data.

The polling booth data reveals that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made heavy inroads into the vote bank of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress to gain a majority in the state.

All five constituencies — Loni, Murad Nagar, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad and Modi Nagar — went to BJP. However, the major vote share from Muslim dominated areas of Pasonda and Shaheed Nagar in Sahibabad went to the Congress-SP alliance and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

As per the provisional data of polling booths, Congress-SP received nearly 19,000 votes but the BJP candidate secured only 1,200 votes in Muslim dominated Kaila Bhatta, Gulzar Colony, Hindon Vihar and Islam Nagar in Ghaziabad segment. The BJP swept garnered more than 25,000 votes from localities such as Vijay Nagar, Mawai and Mirzapur.

“Majority of the Muslim votes went to SP and Congress as they had an alliance and were preferred due to their schemes for minorities. People here preferred the Congress candidate due to the alliance and the SP had not fielded any candidate. Areas of Vijay Nagar have a dominant Hindu population, which favoured the BJP,” said Mohsin Alvi, a resident of Kaila Bhatta.

In Loni, the BSP candidate and sitting MLA gained the majority votes from Rashid Ali Gate, Jamalpura, Mustafabad, Toli Mohalla and Apar Kot, all Muslim dominated areas. The BSP candidate secured more than 12,500 votes while the BJP candidate got only 850 votes.

In Murad Nagar, the BJP secured the majority of its votes in Kavi Nagar, Shastri Nagar, Nehru Nagar, Govindpuram, Harsaon police lines, Sanjay Nagar and Yadav dominated Bamheta and Lal Kuan. In these polling booths, the BJP garnered over 60,000 votes while the Congress-SP and BSP received around 14,000 and 11,000 votes, respectively.

In Modi Nagar, the BJP candidate got 14,000 votes; a majority of it from areas of Govindpuri, Harmukhpuri and Devendrapuri, which have a dominant Hindu population, whereas the BSP remained short of the 2,000-vote mark.

Denying polarisation, the BJP attributed the resounding success to Prime Minister Modi. They also attributed booth-level campaigns by BJP cadres for the success.

“For every contestant, we assigned a team of 20 workers for each booth in their assembly segment. There was good coordination between the organisation and the candidates. The booth-level workers were heavily involved in publicity and contacting voters during the campaigning,” Ajay Sharma, city president of BJP, said.

The vote share of Congress went down from 13.26% in 2012 to 6.2%, SP’s fell from 29.29% in 2012 to 21.8% and the BSP’s, from 25.95% in 2012 to 22.2%. BJP captured most of these votes, increasing its vote share from 15.21% in 2012 to 39.7%.